There is a fairly fresh article that was just posted about the benefits from compounds in garlic essential oil that could possibly treat/prevent COVID-19. There is still much research to be done in this hypothesis but it is a very interesting read.
Here is a great summary of the article written by Danielle Vaamonde ’20 and Michael Maggipinto ’20. This is the Abstract of the summary:
Abstract
In this presentation, the scientific paper entitled “Investigation into SARS-CoV-2 Resistance of Compounds in Garlic Essential Oil” is discussed. Scientists in Vietnam found that garlic essential oils have organosulfur compounds that can strongly react with the amino acids within angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors and the PDB6LU7 protease. This is relevant to SARS-CoV-2 resistance and treatment because if the essential oil compounds react and bind instead, SARS-CoV-2 cannot bind to host cells or replicate. A molecular docking imaging technique was used to test the binding affinity between molecules. It was found that 17 of the essential oil compounds had negative docking score energies (DS), which indicates a higher binding affinity between the molecule and the binding site, that is due to the stability of the interaction. While the results suggest some organosulfur compounds bound stronger than others, they also suggest that using all 17 compounds together could likely ensure SARS-Co-V-2 inhibition. Though this is an experiment based on molecular docking, which is a simulation, the results seem promising and should be translated to in vitro clinical trials.
The rest of the summary is attached as a PDF below.